Pros vs. Cons: 10 at the Finish Line
Pros vs. Cons: 10 at the Finish Line
A voters guide for each best picture nominee as they ride the tides of taste and time
With final Oscar voting scheduled to begin Thursday, the race toward the 96th Academy Awards is entering its backstretch. This year’s 10 best picture nominees are an especially eclectic group — from small, indie pictures like Past Lives to international features like Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest to gigantic blockbusters like Oppenheimer and Barbie. So to help Academy members mark their ballots, here’s a handy voters’ guide (presented in alphabetical order):
American Fiction
Total noms: 5
Distributor: Amazon MGM Studios
Release date: Dec. 15
Box office: $19.1 million domestic; $20.1 million worldwide
PROS: Representation matters, but representation is also complicated. Cord Jefferson’s directorial debut, an adaptation of Percival Everett’s novel, Erasure, isn’t afraid to grapple with the often contradictory challenges facing African-American creatives. Best actor nominee Jeffrey Wright plays an upper-class academic author trying to navigate cultural stereotypes, cancel culture and diversity initiatives — all while also contending with quite human conditions like an ailing mother and problems with his siblings. Though the issues it addresses are quite specific, it’s nevertheless proven to be a universal crowd-pleaser, winning the People’s Choice audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival, and a BAFTA Award for best adapted screenplay.
CON: A movie about writing books? How retro. A climax that revolves around winning a literary prize? How elitist. A satire that makes fun of Hollywood executives and producers. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
Anatomy of a Fall
Total noms: 5
Distributor: Neon
Release date: Oct. 13
Box office: $4.6 million domestic; $28.4 million worldwide
PROS: Accident, suicide or murder? Writer/director Justine Triet has constructed a suspenseful legal thriller, a tried-and-true genre, that also serves as a vehicle to explore a troubled marriage full of betrayals and resentments. Best actress nominee Sandra Huller plays the accused woman — she’s also a successful novelist — attempting to prove her innocence while also protecting her young son from emotional trauma. At its Cannes debut, it won both the prestigious Palm d’Or and the almost equally coveted Palm Dog, thanks to Messi, its scene-stealing border collie, who commandeered the spotlight at the Academy’s recent Nominees Luncheon. And at the BAFTAs, it was recognized as best original screenplay.
CON: Is that really how they conduct a trial in France? Apparently so, but the chaotic give-and-take of the courtroom scenes left some American audiences bewildered. And then, in her acceptance speech for her best screenplay Golden Globe, Triet seemed to provide an answer to the film’s central mystery. No spoilers, please!
Barbie
Total noms: 8
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Release date: July 21
Box office: $636.2 million domestic; $1.45 billion worldwide
PROS: Oh, you great, big beautiful doll of a movie. Though she was denied a directing nomination, writer/director Greta Gerwig pulled off the year’s biggest hat trick, taking a 64-year old toy, giving it a funny, smart and provocative candy-colored make-over and putting it smack in the center of the cultural conversation. Hollywood might be losing its relevance in the age of TikTok, but Margot Robbie’s Barbie, as she travels from Barbieland to the real world in her quest to redefine her very existence, proved that doesn’t have to be the case as the movie became 2023’s top-grossing film.
CON: It isn’t just Ken who feels relegated to secondary status. Refusing to go along with the joke, some guys also felt the movie gave men short shrift, reducing them to air-brushed himbos and corporate cartoons. For such naysayers, thinking pink may simply be a bridge too far. And never forget the heavy male skew in the Academy.
The Holdovers
Total noms: 5
Distributor: Focus Features
Release date: Oct. 27
Box office; $20 million domestic; $39.7 million worldwide
PROS: Set on the snowy campus of a New England prep school in 1970, Alexander Payne’s dramedy was designed as an intentional callback to the character-driven films of the 1970s, a strategy that should warm the hearts of older Academy members. It provided an acting showcase for veteran Paul Giamatti as a curmudgeonly teacher and rising star Da’Vine Joy Randolph as a good-natured cafeteria worker. And, with the addition of newcomer Dominic Sessa’s abandoned student, it then offered an object lesson in how three lost souls could overcome their differences, winning BAFTAs for both Randolph and its casting.
CON: But too much deja-vu can also result in a been-there-seen-that shrug of the shoulders. The Holdovers ultimately wears its heart on its sleeve, which makes it easy to like, but also easy to set aside in favor of some of the shinier, flashier movies begging for attention.
Killers of the Flower Moon
Total noms: 10
Distributor: Paramount, Apple TV+
Release date: Oct. 20, 2023
Box office: $67.8 million domestic; $156.8 million worldwide
PROS: In what amounted to a labor of love, it took director Martin Scorsese seven years to bring his adaptation of David Grann’s nonfiction book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI to the screen. With frequent collaborators Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro at his side, and welcoming Native American actress Lily Gladstone into their starring ranks, he meticulously recreated 1920s Oklahoma to testify, with a sense of brooding outrage, to the systematic killing of members of the Osage Nation tribe once oil was discovered on their lands. By reclaiming a piece of history previously unfamiliar to many, the film earned points for setting the record straight.
CON: At three hours and 26 minutes, it’s the longest of this year’s nominees, making for a tough sit in the multiplex and a less-than-ideal home viewing experience given that it could be subject to myriad interruptions. And though the filmmakers strove to give members of the Osage Nation their due — even rewriting the screenplay so it would be more than just the story of another white man who cracks the case — there were still some complaints that the movie focused too much on its white protagonists at the expense of the indigenous community who suffered at their hands.
Maestro
Total noms: 7
Distributor: Netflix
Release date: Dec. 7, 2023
Box office: Not reported
PROS: Leaving no stylistic stone unturned, writer, director and star Bradley Cooper shook up bio-doc conventions to tell the story of Leonard Bernstein through the prism of his marriage to Felicia Montealegre. The Academy already has a vested interest in the composer, who was nominated for his score for 1954’s On the Waterfront and whose breakthrough Broadway musical West Side Story was turned into the 1961 best picture Oscar winner. And following in the wake of his 2018 version of A Star Is Born, with its eight nominations, Maestro underscored Cooper’s status as a filmmaker to be reckoned with.
CON: Still, some critics, echoing Emperor Joseph II in Amadeus, complained, “too many notes.” And given Bernstein’s prodigious career, it was easy for them to second-guess the choices Cooper made. Plus, there’s an added hurdle: The film bears the Netflix logo, and the Academy has yet to hand the (non-theatrical release) streamer its top award.
Oppenheimer
Total noms: 13
Distributor: Universal
Release date: July 21, 2023
Box office: $329 million domestic; $957.5 million worldwide
PROS: No one has done more to champion the big screen experience than writer/director Christopher Nolan, and his Oppenheimer, the Globes’ best drama winner, exceeded all expectations: Its subject, the creation of the atomic bomb, couldn’t have been more serious; its cast — from Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., and Emily Blunt to the dozens of day-players — all delivered; and its sound and visuals were ear-and-eye-popping. Proving that a film could be both serious and hugely successful, it made the case that movies aren’t dead yet. It cleaned up at the BAFTA Awards, sweeping seven categories, including picture, director and actor. And with more nominations than any other contender, it should find support across the Academy’s 17 branches.
CON: Viewers who caught Oppenheimer on 70-mm IMAX were wowed, but those who watched it at home via the Academy portal or now on Peacock inevitably missed some of its explosive impact. A few objected that the movie didn’t show the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And with Nolan the odd-on favorite to claim the best director Oscar, following his DGA win, some may be tempted to spread the wealth around and award best picture to a competitor.
Past Lives
Total noms: 2
Distributor: A24
Release date: June 2, 2023
Box office: $11.3 million domestic; $24.8 million worldwide
PROS: Heralding the arrival of a new talent in writer/director Celine Song, the cross-cultural Past Lives travels from Seoul, South Korea to New York City as it delicately traces the unexpected turns that life sometimes takes. Winner of the Gotham Independent Film Award for best feature, it’s been embraced by discerning audiences and a win for the movie, starring Greta Lee and Teo Yoo, would continue an Oscar-winning streak for movies like Parasite and Everything Everywhere All At Once that showcase Asian and Asian-American talent.
CON: The film’s modesty is at once one of its virtues and a possible obstacle among voters who often rate Oscar contenders in terms of their size and seeming importance. For as Casablanca’s Humphrey Bogart put it, “It doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”
Poor Things
Total noms: 11
Distributor: Searchlight
Release date: Dec. 8, 2023
Box office: $32 million domestic; $92.5 million worldwide
PROS: For his adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s novel, director Yorgos Lanthimos pulled out all the stops, creating a fantastical world brimming with off-beat imagination, and winning the Globe for best comedy/musical in the process. And Emma Stone, his best actress nominated star, responded in kind, turning in a fearless performance as she quite literally bares all as the re-animated Bella Baxter. Academy voters don’t always respond to such metaphorical whimsey, but a win would not be unprecedented given the best picture Oscar awarded to Guillermo del Toro’s equally audacious and imaginative 2017 film, The Shape of Water. And it demonstrated strength at the BAFTAs, picking up five awards, including a trophy for Stone.
CON: More straight-laced voters may not be ready to go along for such a wild, R-rated ride. And, thematically, as a fable about a woman gradually discovering her desires, strength and individuality, Bella faces competition from the much more popular Barbie.
The Zone of Interest
Total noms: 5
Distributor: A24
Release date: Dec. 15, 2023
Box office: $6.9 million domestic; $13.4 million worldwide
PROS: The closest thing to an austere art film among this year’s nominees, writer/director Jonathan Glazer’s adaptation of Martin Amis’ novel invites audiences to visit a place that can be uncomfortable but necessary. With neo-Nazis on the rise around the globe, The Zone of Interest is a cautionary tale. As its camera keeps an almost anthropologic distance, it documents a German family living next door to the Auschwitz concentration camp, the banality of their everyday lives immune to the horrors happening just over the backyard fence. Championed by leading critics’ groups — and winner of three BAFTAs — the film challenges everyone who turns a blind eye on the evils of the world, and the Academy could find it hard to turn away.
CON: Here’s the problem, though. Most of the time, Academy voters opt for a best picture winner whose victory ends the ceremony on an upbeat, celebratory note. AndThe Zone of Interest is no one’s idea of a feel-good movie…unless…now, bear with me on this…Mel Brooks were invited to make the final presentation, and so could open the envelope and announce with a cheeky smile, “And now it’s…springtime for Hitler and Germany!” Cue the dancing showgirls and jackbooted chorus.
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